Community Blogs
FROM THE OUTSIDE LOOKING IN
The Election: Views from the Long Tail
I was in Denver while the DNC was running its course but I literally steered clear of the main event. When the helicopters began circling like flies and cops with radar guns took up positions on every on/off ramp east of town, and the traffic slowed until it was stuck, I drove my rig out of the city on back roads. That was my DNC experience: avoiding it. [more]
The Dog Blog with Kathryn Socie
Marking Time
Most people track their lives in some way, capturing important moments in time in an effort to tuck memories away and allow those in their present into their past. Unfortunately for me, I never carry a camera or seem to collect many pictures and I can’t really say why. Laziness perhaps. I write, but chronicling my everyday thoughts and experiences in words has always been a futile effort; an entirely lame entry appears once every few months, causing me to throw out the exercise altogether. Yesterday, however, I discovered I’ve been recording my life's path in a rather unusual way.
I had gone in search of a bracelet stored in a cheap purple box picked up many moons ago for my “prized” smaller possessions. It’s one of those boxes divided into sections, consisting of layers. On one, I keep the few pieces of jewelry I own and in another I’ve been, somewhat absentmindedly, collecting tags; I.D. tags from each and every dog that has spent any amount of time in my life. Tags marking each move, from state to state or just across town. Tags recording chapters of my life. My first dog, my second dog, foster dogs, found dogs, tags including the name of a partner with whom I shared my dogged life for a spell.
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Stumbling the Walk
Hope Don’t Park Your Mother****in’ Car
I can certainly see why people like Barack so much. He is a fantastic speaker, and brings a verve to his delivery that is lacking in just about everyone else’s stage rap these days. He has a knack for making a person actually believe that hey, maybe this guy is legitimate, and that all the changes he speaks of are possible. All in all, though, I came away from the speech, and the convention as a whole, feeling about like I expected to: pretty underwhelmed, fairly disgusted, and not particularly hopeful. I’ll vote for the guy, but I don’t know that I’ll put a bumper sticker on my car for him, and certainly won’t do the yard sign thing. I don’t feel strong enough about him, or the Democrats as a party, to really proclaim my allegiance. [more]
Follow the Dirt Road In Your Soul to Humbug Mountain
Earning a Commercial Driver’s License Is No Free Ride_thumb.gif)
This summer I needed a paying gig so I hooked a summer job giving history tours and driving a red trolley. All I needed to get started with the ding, ding, ding and ching, ching, ching, was a commercial driver's license, or CDL.
“This whole thing has gotten a lot harder since 9/11,” my driving test contractor said. “I guess they think that someone might take a bus, fill it with explosives and drive it into the capitol building."
I'd never thought of the little red trolley as a danger to society but, with so many waiting periods, I can see why the government might worry.
It would be faster and easier to get a machine gun than a CDL. No waiting period there.
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Bob Wire Has a Point (It's Under His Cowboy Hat)
I’m Not Voting For Michelle Obama
I’m sorry, did I miss something? Michelle Obama isn’t running for office. Her husband is. The fact that the voting public’s perception of Michelle carries so much importance in Barack’s campaign is a clear symptom of this nation’s misdirected focus when it comes to electing effective leaders.
I am supporting Barack Obama because he displays the qualities that have been sorely lacking in the Oval Office for the last, oh, 45 years. Dignity. Intelligence. Cleverness. Idealism. A sense of depth, of thoughtfulness. I need my President to be smarter than I am. He’s got some good ideas, and I think he means well. I say let’s give him a shot.
I don’t give a rat’s ass who he’s married to, or if he’s even married at all. He can host an annual gay S&M bacchanal on the White House lawn for all I care, as long as he makes sure my Social Security check won’t bounce. He could snort Jerry Garcia’s ashes off Amy Winehouse’s scrawny naked ass all day long if he wanted to, as long as he brought the troops home from Afghanistan and Iraq.
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New West Baby
Rock Around the Clock
Symbols have immeasurable power. They can dwarf the message of words in a single blow. Yet they can be small and so efficient that even a high-resolution photograph can’t compete.
The Olympics’ five rings, for example, would take pages to describe (and most recently 40 billion dollars, too!) Superman’s giant S emblazoned on his chest: a symbol that stands alone. The cross: another symbol with magnificent and historic meaning. Symbols infiltrate our lives, just look as you drive (or bike or walk) to work today: a green light, a red hexagon sign at the corner, and if you’re driving again, the yellow flashing indicator next to your gas gage on the dash!
We are surrounded by symbols.
If I were to pick one symbol to represent me, one symbol with the temerity to sum up my life as a new mom, it would be an easy choice: an alarm clock...
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Inside the DNC with Jerry Brady
After the Convention Has EmptiedThere are four times more members of the press at this convention than delegates, over 15,000. This counts only those with credentials, not the hundreds of hometown bloggers like me.
Outside the convention hall, five large tents are devoted entirely to the press, including The Big Tent for bloggers. My cousin Tim Wall, a cameraman for CNN, works out of a multi-storied building nearby complete with a patio which serves free ice cream. Google offers free smoothies and massages.
If you’re on the third level of the Pepsi Center, you can clearly see into the sky boxes that serve as studios for the major networks. There’s Bill O’Reilly of Fox News clearly visible over there, the PBS crew nearby, CNN below us and so on.
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Inside the DNC with Jerry Brady
After Hillary’s Speech, Recognition of a Loss
Attending the convention with my wife, Rickie, adds to the experience, I’ll tell you that. For one thing, it means dancing in the aisles at all times possible.
But to see it through her eyes, at least a little, is to trace a personal history entwined with Democratic conventions, political history and the role of women in America.
Last night as we listened to Sen. Hillary Clinton deliver that pitch-perfect speech, Rickie began to cry. She was completely surprised. Overwhelmed. I asked her why.
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Missoula Notebook
Did You Know John McCain… is a Liar?First in an occasional series of "fun facts" about the Senator from Arizona.
John McCain's latest ad (linked below) claims that Barack Obama says "Iran is a tiny country and doesn't pose a serious threat."
Here's what Obama actually said:
“Strong countries and strong Presidents talk to their adversaries. That’s what Kennedy did with Khrushchev. That’s what Reagan did with Gorbachev. That’s what Nixon did with Mao. I mean, think about it: Iran, Cuba, Venezuela — these countries are tiny compared to the Soviet Union. They don’t pose a serious threat to us the way the Soviet Union posed a threat to us. And yet we were willing to talk to the Soviet Union at the time when they were saying, ‘We’re going to wipe you off the planet.’ And ultimately, that direct engagement led to a series of measures that helped prevent nuclear war and over time allowed the kind of opening that brought down the Berlin Wall.”
Now, watch John McCain's deliberate distortion of these remarks, and consider whether you really want a president who is willing to lie his way into office.
For more like this, read the rest of the Missoula Notebook.
Missoula Notebook
Yes, Missoula, They Do Steal Bikes
To all the new faces in town this week, a warm welcome. I know you are busy finding apartments, figuring out class schedules, and selecting the right chocolate lab to go with your Subaru Outback, but there is something we really need to talk about, right away.
It’s your bike.
There are some people in town who want to steal it.
They have a plan, they are already out looking, and your cable lock will barely slow them down.
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